Haehnle Sanctuary Crane Count 10/02/2023
by Don Henise

It was a seasonally warm afternoon and evening for our Monday Crane Count at Haehnle Sanctuary. It was pleasantly warm enough for short sleeves and short pants until the mosquitoes forced us to cover up.

Only Seven Sandhill Cranes remained in Mud Lake Marsh for the night.  Just before dusk, many ducks began flying into the marsh - mostly Mallards and Wood Ducks, but also a few Blue-winged Teal and our first of the season American Wigeons. A Merlin rocketed out of the marsh and up over the observation hill earlier in the evening. Robyn found a Lincoln's Sparrow behind us near the overlook. Large flocks of Red-winged blackbirds are beginning to roost in the marsh and several flocks wooshed right overhead on their way in.

Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis)

With the warm weather, there were lots of Autumn Meadowhawk dragonflies around the prairie along with many Clouded and Orange Sulphur butterflies, a few Monarchs and a Viceroy or two.

Autumn Meadowhawk (Sympetrum vicinum)

eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S151303731

Total Cranes Roosting - 7
Crane Counters - Robyn Henise and Steve Jerant
Compiler - Don Henise
Photos-Don Henise

Jackson Audubon and the Haehnle Sanctuary lost a longtime supporter on September 21 when Joan passed away.  She served on the Haehnle Committee for many years.  Here are some memories from our members:

Helena Robinovitz:

Joan will always be in my memory with her incredible voice of warmth and fun. She was always graciously hosting the Haehnle Committee members with chips & pop & pizza & delicious homemade desserts. Joan was a trained & remarkable botanist which she put to use in helping identify many native plants at the sanctuary. She left her gentle mark on the land & in our hearts.

Allen King:

Being a student of Ron's, I've known Joan since they got married.  As I recall, Art Carpenter (and others I don't recall), a professor at Eastern Michigan where Joan did some teaching, got Ron and Joan together (blind date).  Art and his sons came each year to our Christmas Bird Counts.  The matchmaking worked.  I recall Ron talking about taking Joan on a date on the back roads of the Waterloo area and listening to a whip-poor-will.  Shortly after their daughter was born, I came by their house and Ron was in the yard hanging up cloth baby diapers.  Joan was recovering from a rough delivery, so Ron was doing a lot of chores while she recovered.  Joan was a great wife and mother.  She was so supportive.  Joan encouraged Amy in many interests including violin and they saw their daughter become an electrical engineer for General Motors.  That kind of surprised me, with Joan and Ron so involved in biology and nature.  For almost 50 years now, every time I see a black cherry tree I would think of Joan because she taught me a good way to identify it was by calling it the burnt potato chip bark tree.  I also taught this memory aid to my students or groups I had on nature walks.  Yes, she was knowledgeable about local history and early on she explained to me how to do rubbings of old faded gravestones to reveal who was buried. The many Christmas bird counts we went on, Joan wasn't able to go with us as she and Amy had to go to St. Jacob's Lutheran Church to rehearse for the Christmas Eve service.  Of course, Amy played the violin on these holy nights.  The many sanctuary meetings we had at the Hoffman's house were sure to have Joan's fresh baked cookies.  When they had a wood burning stove in the basement, many years back, you might hear the sound of Joan tossing in more logs to keep the fire burning.  God bless Ron for the love and care he has shown Joan in these last years of her life.  She was a special lady. 

Sandy Leffler:

I remember Joan as a knowledgeable, warm, and gentle lady. I met her around 2007 when she contacted my organization to sponsor a replacement bronze plaque that had been stolen from “The Boulder” on Bunkerhill Road.  This marked the site where John Batteese Bernard built the first Indian trading post in Jackson County.  Doug and I went to the Hoffman home to collect Joan’s research papers on the trading post.  Joan invited us into a room where we looked out on the bird feeders and she told us the Juncos were just coming back for the winter.  Many were at the feeders.  She loved the history surrounding the area of their home.

Joan Hoffman and Harold Wing

Her memorial service will be at her beloved St. Jacob Lutheran Church on October 28.  More information is available at the Mitchell Funeral Home.

Memorial contributions may be made to:

* St. Jacob Lutheran Church

* The Leslie Area Historical Society

* Alzheimer's Association

The highlight was the Sedge Wren seen in the transition area to the left of the apple trees. Only 4 cranes landed in the marsh to roost.

Counters: Ross Green, Gary Siegrist, & Don Henise

Compiler: Don Henise

Total crane count was 4

Species count:  32

View eBird checklist at https://ebird.org/checklist/S150777457

Photos by Don Henise

We had a great walk along the blue and red trails at MacCready Preserve this morning.  Twelve members came along for the tour including Joann who has rejoined the group after being off for a while. It was wonderful to have her back  again-for the whole 2.64 miles of walking we did!

(Steve Jerant)

The Don & Robyn scouted some Swainson's Thrush yesterday and we were able to hear their calls very clearly and see them-- just not as clearly.  

(Brenda Wineman)

In addition to our target bird for the day, we had a very welcoming Turkey Vulture greeted us in the parking lot,  some Wood Ducks perching and a group of  Red-breasted Nuthatches, and three warblers.  While the last three of us were getting ready to leave, we heard the unmistakable call from the Red-shouldered hawk and saw it soaring high above the property. 

Along with pretty good birding MacCready offered up some nice plants including the fruiting Jack-in-the-Pulpit

(Brenda Wineman)

Our trip post is available on eBird at https://ebird.org/checklist/S150273788

Haehnle Sanctuary Crane Count 09/18/2023
by Don Henise

(Steve Jerant)

The first official Monday night crane count of the fall was held this evening at the Phyllis Haehnle Memorial Sanctuary. As expected this early in the season, few Sandhill Cranes were counted roosting in the sanctuary marsh. We counted a total of 26 cranes with only 8 of them settling down to roost for the night. A total of 44 bird species were observed throughout the evening.

The highlight of the evening was an Olive-sided Flycatcher which worked its way around several of the dead snags below the observation hill on the edge of the marsh. It was showing off it aerobatic abilities as it flew many flycatching sorties - not to outdone by a by-plane which flew overhead entertaining the counters with it’s dives and climbs and rollovers.

(Olive-sided Flycatcher Don Henise)

(Eastern Phoebe Don Henise)

Counters: Ross Green, Steve Jerant, Robyn Henise, Don Henise

Compiler: Don Henise

Total crane count was 8

Species count:  44

View eBird checklist at https://ebird.org/checklist/S150236974

We took a tour of the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology this morning.  This is our second trip to the facility.  Longtime curator Janet Hinshaw retired a few years ago, so we were lead by a relatively new member of the staff, Collection Manager, Brett W. Benz, Ph.D.

The first stop was to the lab where birds are prepared for the collection.  They are either stored as skins of reduced down to bones.  To produce a skin the bird is stripped of all internal organs, muscles, and bones. Only the feathers and legs/feet are left.  Multiple tissue samples or entire organs are saves and preserved. Depending on the species/study the contents of the stomach may be saved.

During the intake birds are preserved before preparation in normal kitchen  refrigerator/freezers.  The tissue samples are saved in deep liquid nitrogen freezers which are able to keep the tissue well preserved for hundreds of years.  

The facility is a working lab so we passed through some other labs as well as a documents area where there are catalog books going back to the 19th Century.  The bulk of the collection was from the late 19th and into the 20th Century.  The collection information is in a database that can be accessed by other learning and research institutions.

In addition to the big freezers, this facility also has a very small CT imaging machine.  The scanner allows for specimens to be scanned in 3D  and provides imaging of skeletal systems and internal organs.  Bones can then be measured and added to image databases to provide sample bone structures for different taxa.  This will be able to aid bone identification without resorting to boxes of physical bone collection on the premise.

The bird collection is the 5th largest in the nation and has about 98% of the world's species.  It includes skins (of course), bones, eggs, nests, juveniles, and tissue & stomach contents samples.  The room with the skins shares its space with mammals and insect collections.  

Bret provided us with some views of some unique birds and we also ordered ahead for some birds to view and compare.  The Ivory-billed Woodpecker is a bit bigger than the Pileated of our Michigan woods. However, they not that closely related, but we did see the Ivory-billed's cousin the Imperial Woodpecker.  He unfortunately shares a berth in the "Extinct Taxa" drawer.

We got to get a close look at the Coopers and Sharp-shinned cousins up close and the size range between species and sex was very apparent.  He added a Northern Goshawk to show the really cast range of these accipiters.

Others birds of interest were the Empidonax group, shrikes, hummingbirds, and a Kiwi.

Partial Trip List:
Carolina parakeet
Pileated Woodpecker
Ivory-billed Woodpecker
Empidonax sp.
Imperial Woodpecker
Common Loon
Great-horned Owl
Northern Shrike
Kiwi
Ruby-throated hummingbird
Gian Hummingbird

NO eBird list was submitted, as these were all dead, it would have set off several rare bird alarms for Ann Arbor, and my eBird account would have been suspended.  But we did get a Double-crested cormorant flying over the parking lot on the way home.

We had a “seasonally” warm morning for a walk to The Nature Conservancy Grand River Fen Preserve.   This 453-acre property is located in southern Jackson County at the headwaters of the Grand River.  JAS has not had a trip to this preserve but several of our members have been recommending it. Habitat includes restored prairie, forest, mixed wetland, and prairie fen. 

I don’t think we hit this property at its best for birding, but the summer wildflowers were in brilliant bloom.  The grassland birds were just not there at this time of year, not even a Blue Bird was seen.  A few warblers did get our notice as well as the usual suspects for a reasonable species count of 30 for the morning.

A highlight for me was being at the headwaters of this great Michigan waterway and a reminder that all parts of our waters need to be cared for.

We’ll return next year for another view of this property.

See our trip eBird list for details.

After last year's trip to point Moo, I was hoping for a much better show for 2023.  Ross's scouting report from his mission on Friday left me feeling this may not be the turnaround year.  Eleven of us made the trip downriver and  drove the dikes for some shorebirds.  

(Steve Jerant)

We were not disappointed.  It was the best trip we had in many years. There was a good bit of activity out on the dike and we got a Ruddy Turnstone at the first good look at some shorebird habitat.

Ruddy Turnstone (Don Henise)

We saw several groups of Common Gallinule in various parts of the property.  The little ones are so darn cute, I just have to share all of Don's pics.

Common Gallinule  (Don Henise)

Common Gallinule  (Don Henise)

Common Gallinule  (Don Henise)

One of the most productive spots of the day was behind where the dredger was working. It was a bit noisy, and the terrain was, well, a bit uneven. 

(Steve Jerant)

But the birds we saw included Wilson's Phalarope, Yellowlegs, Stilt Sandpiper, Semipalmated Plover, Least Sandpiper, and Semipalmated Sandpiper.

Semipalmated Plover (Don Henise)

While taking a stop on the dike for another good mudflat area, we were treated to a flyover by a Red Knot.

The final area was a short walk on the end of the 'banana' where we got some songbirds and another flyover of a Wilson's Snipe.  And our last shorebird views of the day included Pectoral Sandpiper and Dunlin

Pectoral Sandpiper (Don Henise)

Dunlin (Don Henise)

Our final species count was 63:  including 8 swan & duck, 4 raptors, 4 heron species, 5 gull & tern, and 15 shorebirds. We observed 9 American White Pelicans and nearly 200 Double-crested Cormorant.  See the Complete trip eBird checklist  for details.

Marshland & Cooling Towers (Steve Jerant)

Six members of Jackson Audubon drove into Gratiot County Tuesday for an August tour of the Maple River SGA.  This was the first trip JAS sponsored for this area.  Water levels in the units were low and there was only one area on our journey that had any water that might provide some shorebird viewing.  But between low water and high grass, we saw no shorebirds in that area.  The grasslands were a bit kinder to us, yielding Field Sparrow, Indig Bunting, Eastern Meadowlark, Horned Lark and Sedge Wren.

(Steve Jerant)

We recorded 33 species for the morning.  A  eBird trip report is available at https://ebird.org/tripreport/150290

We lunched at Ryan's Roadhouse in St. Johns on the way down south.  Great choice!  Food and service was wonderful.

For our second grassland tour of the summer JAS visited the Watkins Lake SP and Preserve.  There was plenty of room on the wide trails for the 15 birders who went on the walk.  While a bit warm, we did have a light breeze to keep it comfortable.  The first half of the morning we walked the very upland grasslands on the western State Park side of the property.  We all heard, but only a few of us actually saw, Henslow's Sparrows.  Fortunately, the Bobolink and Eastern Meadowlark were not so shy. 

Moving to the east we walked to the Washtenaw County park section of the trails.  This is a lovely part of the park with open views to wetlands to the north and grasslands to the south.  It leads into a wooded area that leads to a high meadow with a great view of the surrounding countryside.

(Steve Jerant)

We spent a good bit of time trying to get a view of a Yellow-breasted Chat.  He definitely was not going to cooperate and only 1 or 2 folks got a brief flash of a view.

(Brenda Wineman) 

Even though that little guy wasn't cooperating (perhaps he's still a bit upset about getting kicked out of the warbler family) we had a wonderful tour on a bright summer day.

Species count was 37, see the eBird Trip report  for details.